It is international in scope and open to all digital artists and photographers. Up to six images accepted per artist. A modest fee required per image.

MOCA will publisher a full-color catalog of the contest. MOCA has published 16 Donnie catalogs, one for each of the yearly contests, in collaboration with Blurb.com, the online publisher. All catalogs are elegant publications, with each image reproduced authoritatively on its own page.

Contest will offer eight awards: first, second and third prizes plus five honorable mentions. Winning images
are given year-long exposure on the MOCA site.

Eight Donnie 2014 Contest Winner:

FIRST PRIZESailor's Gala by Helga Schmitt

SECOND PRIZEPortabella by Rick Spixx (Rykk)

THIRD PRIZENoorsvaarden Beach at Terschelling

HONORABLE MENTION #1Fauberge Factory

HONORABLE MENTION #2Urban Laundry by Rob Whyte

HONORABLE MENTION #3The Three Nymphs by Erica Kiechle-Klemt

HONORABLE MENTION #4Reflections by Renata Spiazzi

HONORABLE MENTION #5End of the Road or Top of the Mountain? by Gina Topping

ART IS A SWISS ARMY KNIFE

a short essay on fractal art by Jim Fitch

Jim Fitch is a frequent commentator on the arts. He has invested over forty years advocating for the art and artists of Florida as a gallery owner, artists representative and art promoter. Along the way he named and wrote about the Florida art phenomenon now known as the Highwaymen, founded the Museum of Florida Art and Culture (MOFAC.ORG) where he served as curator for five years and keeps his hand in as the acquisition agent for the Florida Masters Collection and art consultant for Fitch Global LLC. His book, "Living Dogs and Dead Lions", is a short no-holds-barred look at the economic side of art."

Who am I? Where did I come from? Why am I here?

Those are philosophical questions that have puzzled mankind for eons. Everyone has their own
opinion. Add to those three a fourth, "What is art"? Of course I have an opinion, one that has
served me well and kept me out of trouble over the years. I'm pleased to share it with you.
As the title suggests, Art is a Swiss Army Knife. What do you want it to do? I appreciate the
aesthetics of art as well as the next guy but my real passion is contemporary art history, 1850
forward, and the characteristics, personalities and contributions of the artists involved. The
blade I use the most is the one labeled art as commodity. I depend on the above qualifiers to
provide a foundation for predicting the future value of art as investment or an estate building tool
that is more enjoyable than a stock portfolio. It's a tough sell. Frederic Taubes, a prolific artist,
writer and critic has said the biggest problem to getting the man on the street involved with a
serious art involvement is that they have been influenced by "educated idiots". Taubes was
very outspoken.

Never mind the philosophy, even though it applies to any art form, this blog and my comments
are focused on digital art in general and fractal art in particular. I insist there is a difference.
I was introduced to fractals and fractal art by John Briggs's book Patterns of Chaos. I knew
nothing about fractals and less about computers and programming but the potential of this new
art form was exciting. I pestered as many digital artists as I could to try and increase my
knowledge about the mechanics of how it was created. It didn't take long to discover that I was
in over my head. I was even so bold as to write an article titled The Next Big Thing for a regional
trade journal.
Fools do indeed rush in.

I took a shot at interpreting Briggs's comments about the discovery of fractals for the man on the
street. Not very sophisticated.The chaos which began to appear like abstract, colorful spirits on
computer screens around the
world, displayed a wild, haunting order. It was chaos, all right: inherently unpredictable. But as
scientists stalked the spirits capering across their screens, they began to uncover a richness in
chaos never before imagined. The Patterns of Chaos by John Briggs. Those words generated
an image on the monitor of my mind that looked like this to me:

I imagine a human noodling around on a computer when suddenly there appears on the
computer screen an image that was visually interesting and aesthetically pleasing. As fate
would have it the human was a respected physicist. Consequently, fractal art was born. It was
chaos on demand. That much I understand and even though it may be overly simplistic it is, at
least, a point of beginning in my attempt to become better informed about the future of computer
generated fractals as an art form.

I gave up on understanding the mechanics of creating fractals and fractal art and went back to
the more familiar territory of investigating the future and future value of this new art form.
Currently I see the genre, if you want to call it that, being used in three ways. First are those I
call cowboys, people who got a fractal generator for Christmas and are having a great time
creating wallpaper and imagery that is better done with a kaleidoscope. Next are serious artists
with design and programming skills who are savvy enough to know what it takes to survive in
the world of art. These are the ones to watch. Then there are the scientists. They have their own
agenda that may or may not be of interest to the general public. I'll go so far as to say that when
art and science get married fractal imagery will be put to its highest and best use. The artists
who contribute the most to both disciplines are the ones I want to invest in. It'll take a while.

In the next column, see our selection of eight fractal art images from the MOCA archives.

These artists employ fractal, mathematical or algorithmic programs to draw their art.
Many use programs available publicly, but some are themselves
mathematicians and programmers who draw images by writing their own code.
Some artists are purists, who publish their art exactly as the
computer draws them to screen. Others engage in so-called post-processing,
wherein the image is enhanced or manipulated, to a greater or lesser degree,
to serve the purposes of the artist.

Inside Out Shell by Pam Blackstone

Burning Ice by Karim Bouchnak

Radiance by Myriam Di Maio

Bolugi by Fractalia

DNA by Juliette Gribnau

Fishbowl by Tom Hubbard

Good Vibrations by Drazen Jerkovic

Starburst by Will Johnson

ART RECEIVED

Images by Veronica Freschi

"Altering light, capturing light, intrigues me. I use photographs, color
and distortion. If the image moves me, I sign it."